They already have online emulators for 64 games. You can play 64 roms against other people online.

That's true, though I've never used it. It might be laggy/innacurately spatially organised (things not appearing where they should) or may not even be a solid connection (since it's having to generate the two games seperately, rather than on one single console/TV). Though this is specualtion on my part: Has anybody else had experience with the online functions of emulators?

On a side note: What about if Nintendo want third party developers to produce more than simply a (in effect) multiplayer game will? What about playing through story mode with somebody over the internet? I'm sure there needs to be major compression on streams of info that go between one console and another (especially if they're not using a dedicated server for actual gamplay - even if they're using one to set up the games themselves).

Meh, I'm not exactly up on these things, so chances are I'm not accurate. But still, I thought it worth mentioning.

All games aren't capable to go online, none to less emulate as well. Look at Star Ocean(Snes Version) there where many parts of the games graphics that were very hard to emulate, some games need special chips that the original hardward provided, some of these chips cannot be emulated.

Also, the Emulator has to be configured to emulate the game properly for online to work, it also has to be configured to play with other systems or emulators. The game that your playing also needs a "VS" option to begin with.